


here at the end of all things

by hulklinging



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7725754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life can feel a bit directionless, after the world ends. Especially if the most important people to you are scattered across the continent.</p>
<p>Attempting to make your way to where you all used to spend your summers, that camp in the woods on the coast, is as bad an idea as anything else. And hey, maybe some of the others will have the same idea.</p>
<p>Enjolras hopes so. It's all he's got.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This literally haunted me until I wrote it down. Thanks Sarah aka howlikeagod for talking me through posting this.

Enjolras has been in the bunker for almost five months when they get told they're being moved out.

It's been almost a year since the world's governments had revealed that something big was coming. Since they came around with instructions on how to get to the closest bunker, and a small grey backpack. They were told that when the warning went out, they were to proceed directly to their assigned bunker and they would be safe. The backpack represented the little space they had for personal affects.

_No one even wants to say what it is,_ Enjolras raged on his blog. ' _A catastrophic event' tells us nothing. The people have a right to know!_

Seven months later, at two am Eastern Standard Time, Enjolras' phone buzzed with the alert. It was terrible timing, he couldn't help but think, as he threw some clothes, laptop and chargers, pocket knife and journal into his bag. It didn't take much to fill it, and Enjolras gritted his teeth in frustration as he tried not to look at his wall of books. On impulse, he grabbed the photo that sat on his desk and tucked it into the side pocket. They said not to worry about food, but he did have to run back into the house for his toiletries bag, his meds and needles carefully stored inside. Walletinto the pocket of his summer jacket, bright red and not warm enough, and he was gone. He locked the door behind him.

Sometimes he reflects on how ridiculous a gesture that was.

He didn't have to travel far for his bunker. He was one of the the lucky ones. They're supposed to stay open for twelve hours, but with the timing of the warning, Enjolras' was just over half-capacity by one pm. It was a strange scene. Rows of beds, all numbered. The number matched the one on their ID cards, the ones they had to show at the door. A few bathrooms, a few unmarked doors. Conversation happened all in whispers, in those early hours.

Each bed had a box with one blanket, one pillow, and some bottled water and energy bars. It made it seem like they won't be here long, but Enjolras saw how thick the doors were when he came in. That was the moment he started to revaluate how long he thought they'd be in here for. It didn't feel like hiding under a table waiting for the earthquake to pass. It felt more like moving in.

He sat on his bed and pulled up the group chat that belongs to him and his camp friends. They were supposed to get together in a few months, even though they're now all too old for the camp they met at. Bad timing again. He told them he was safe in a bunker, but no one responded. Probably just busy with their own evacuations, he told himself, and put his phone away again. He was naive enough to think he'd have a chance to try again later.

His watch read just past two pm, and the soldiers at the entrance were having a conversation in hushed tones. He stood up, trying to appear casual as he wandered closer, because even then he knew enough not to trust people in uniforms, especially ones carrying weapons.

Just as he got close enough to maybe catch what they're saying, one of them reached out and typed something into a screen set into the wall. The giant doors began to close.

"What are you doing?"

His voice rang out in the stone space, but none of the soldiers would look at him. "Sorry kid," said one. "It's time. We have to."

Enjolras clenched his fists, felt that rage he's so known for begin to spark.

"We're nowhere near capacity." He ran the numbers through his head again, because he had read them all. There wasn't enough bunkers for everyone. He knew exactly how many transient people and newly landed immigrants struggled to get their ID cards, and he looked out at the cavernous space behind him, took in all the empty beds. The waste disgusted him, the fact that the government didn't care made him burn. He turned the full force of that fire on the soldiers.

"You could stop it."

The soldiers shared a look amongst themselves, uncomfortable. "Look, our orders-"

Enjolras stepped closer, and hands went to the batons each of them carried. "You're signing off on their executions by closing that door." He saw the doubt in their eyes, moved closer still. "Make a stand. Hold the doors a little-"

Too close. Something made contact with the back of his head, and he crumpled. All his sure words bleeding out onto the bunker floor.

By the time he woke up, the tremors had already begun.

The earthquakes went on for days, aftershocks becoming common enough that no one even comments on them anymore. Before the communications went down, Enjolras overheard one soldier mention that volcanoes were erupting.

"Which ones?" The other soldier had asked. "Where?"

"All of them." There was a biblical kind of fear in the man's voice. "Everywhere."

None of this information was shared with the regular civilians, but Enjolras was stuck in the medical tent, head still pounding from the blow he had taken trying to stop the doors. He had little to do but eavesdrop, and later once the world stopped spinning, try to separate what he'd heard from what he'd dreamed.

Months pass underground. No service. No radio. Tight rations. At the four month mark, they'd started to open the doors up again. Tanks were braving the surface, looking for survivors. They came in shipments, looking thin and ragged, almost all of them sporting burns and a wheeze in their lungs. The air is poison now, said the rumours. The whole world is gone.

Most of these survivors don't last long. They come in dying, and expire without fanfare in the lonely medical tent.

Enjolras thinks of Combeferre, who he met at camp when they were barely twelve, who read medical textbooks for fun, who's wanted to be a doctor his whole life because he wants to help people. He was just finishing his first year of med school, when the apocalypse hit. Enjolras hopes the survivors they're getting in his bunker, wherever it is, are less far gone. He hopes his friend's gentle hands are being put to use, making a difference.

Now, what's left of whoever's in charge are trying for something bigger. Moving survivors to a network of bunkers, across the border. An underground city, practically. A place to built a life, instead of just clinging to survival.

Enjolras trusts this plan as little as he trusted the initial evacuation, but he's packing all the same. It's not optional.

He still has trouble speaking out loud. Something got damaged, the day the doors closed. He hasn't gone out of his way to make friends because words are such a struggle, which is why he doesn't care who he's shoved into a transport vehicle with. He was hoping he'd get a glimpse of sky, but the move from bunker to 'bus' is seamless. And how knows? Maybe there's no sky to see anymore.

Enjolras takes his seat on the crowded metal bench, his trusty backpack tucked between his knees.

"What's in it?"

"...Excuse me?"

The guy next to him points at his bag. "For the end of the world. What did you pack? Not that there's really much that can help you, out there. A packing list for the end of the world would be very little supplies and more things like 'a strong sense of direction' and 'the ability to find water in a desert.' Leave your moral compass behind, et cetera et cetera. I guess a normal compass would be good though. If you have somewhere you're trying to get to. Nowhere to really go anymore, but it's a nice sentiment."

There's very little difference from what he packed at home to now. Some socks they'd been given, a set of clothing the soldiers had given out sometime during month two. All boring greys and a little oddly fitting. Enjolras hates them, only because they were supposed to write their names in the collar so they wouldn't get lost in the wash and when he went to do so it took him a moment to remember how to spell it. He hates how hard simple things are now, but no one here knows him, no one needs to know how many gaps there are in his thoughts now. He's almost out of needles, even with the few he grabbed from the medical tent. He's trying not to think about it. His journal is almost full. The compass he'd found under one of the beds in the med tent is safe in the pocket of his jeans, and the thin blanket from his bed is around his shoulders. He's learning to prepare for the worst. That's what this apocalypse has taught him.

Getting asked what he packed feels terribly invasive.

"I d-don't even know you," he points out. The stutter is new too. Another symptom of the concussion. He keeps opening his mouth hoping that today is the day it goes away, but no luck yet.

The guy shrugs. "Just curious what a god's got in his backpack. I don't think you can actually fit the whole concept of religion in a bag, but if there's one person who could, I would put all of my now-worthless money on you. Not that I actually had any money going into the apocalypse, but hey. That's one way to get rid of the problem of student debt in this country, right?"

Enjolras' eyebrows go up, and he takes a moment to actually take in his neighbour. He's got a short and scruffy beard, curly black hair that's been shoved beneath a knit toque that's barely managing to stay together. His complexion is dark and dusty, and the hands that hold tight around the straps of his own backpack are callused and scarred. He's wearing the standard grey clothing, but someone's gone and added patches to the knees and from elbows to wrists in denim. There's colours on the denim that might be doodles, and Enjolras knows it's the end of the world and it's not like fashion was ever really important to him before but the effect is definitely a strange one.

"Denim's hard to wear through," the man explains. He must see Enjolras staring. His nose must have been broken at least once, and his smile is crooked to match. His eyes are the brightest blue Enjolras has seen since they lost the sky.

"Right," says Enjolras. "A god?"

Part of him can't help but be proud of the masculine implied there. He knows he shouldn't care, that passing meant very little even before society crumpled, but he can't help it. It's one part of him that isn't betraying him right now.

The man does a fluttering hand gesture that might be more twitch than intentional. "You, of course. You look like some kind of modern Apollo. Even got the right colour scheme. Burning gold." He reaches out like he's going to touch Enjolras' hair, then thinks better of it. "Are you going to bring us the sun? Is that what's in your bag?"

"I... don't think Ap... pollo does that," is the only response he can get out, because he's just so thrown by the whole conversation. He doesn't like this feeling, being so off kilter just because of a few strange comments. He's usually quicker on his feet.

The man shrugs. "Who knows. It doesn't seem like the gods are doing much of anything these days. Sorry if you're religious and that makes your worldview crumble. That's really the only view of the world that's left though, so I guess it works."

Enjolras has nothing to say to that.

"I'm R," offers the man, after an hour of driving that threatens to rattle Enjolras' bones apart. His head is pounding, like he hasn't slept for days, and he's had his eyes shut tight for the last few minutes, because he doesn't want to watch the world when it starts to spin out of focus.

He wants to ask him about the letter as a name, or why he's worried about wearing out the forearms of his shirt, or what's in his own bag, but the truck chooses that moment to screech to a halt, and he goes flying into the man instead. The dim lights above them go out.

Someone screams. There's the sound of a door slamming, and raised voices.

R's hand has somehow found his arm and is gripping it tight enough to leave a bruise. Enjolras uses his free hand to make sure his backpack is still safe between his knees, and tries to understand what's happening outside.

"This is bad," R mutters. "Unsurprising, but still bad," and Enjolras isn't sure if that was meant for him, or just R voicing his fears out loud.

More muffled voices, and then a gunshot. More screams, and R is standing up, dragging Enjolras behind him. More gunshots. One must hit the bus, because there's a noise like thunder, and there's suddenly a hole of light to Enjolras' left.

"We've gotta get out of here," R says, and Enjolras yanks his arm away from him.

"What's going on?" He doesn't have a moment to feel proud of the speed of the question, because R is heading for the back doors of the trailer. More holes are appearing in the sides of the metal, and in the little glimpses they offer of the people inside, Enjolras sees people down, people groaning and bleeding. He wants to stay and help, but he can hardly see. If they can get the doors of their makeshift bus open, there will be enough light to help. So he follows R.

"Listen, some of the people who didn't make it into the bunkers... Well, it was rough out there, okay? And all of this is like a sitting duck to them." R is shaking his head, his curls bouncing strangely in the low light as he strains at the latches keeping them from the outside. "Should have just stayed out there, honestly."

Enjolras stops and just stares, which means that when R gets the latch undone and shoves the door open, he's blinded by the light outside. He stumbles, and there's the hand on his arm again, guiding rather than dragging now. R was one of the survivors, then. That's news. A thousand questions run through his head, as he squints and follows where R is leading him.

"Wait," he says, after almost a minute of running, the rough ground underneath them changing to something smoother. His lungs are burning. There's not much space to stay fit in an underground bunker. "What about everyone else?"

R pushes his head, and he ducks it. They're somewhere darker, and Enjolras chances opening his eyes to see that they're tucked away behind a wall. There's a half collapsed ceiling above them, and R has let go of him in favour of shoving bits of debris aside. He clicks his tongue when he finds what he's looking for, and then he's reaching for Enjolras' sleeve.

Enjolras moves out of the way.

"The rest of the people-"

"Are on their own," R says firmly. Enjolras spares a moment wondering how he can be so calm, but he sees the panic in the other man's eyes now. "They have guns. Do you have guns, Apollo?"

Enjolras doesn't bother answering. He can still hear the gunshots, the screams, the sound of running feet. He doesn't know how R got them out of there so easily, and he turns to look at the chaos, because if he is too weak to make a difference, the least he can do is bear witness. He watches a woman he thinks he recognizes from a bed a few down from him stumble forward into a ditch. He can't tell if she was shot or if she just fell.

"They'll probably try to round up as many people as they can, once they've got the trucks." A tug at his sleeve. "Then you'll wish I'd let you get shot. Come on."

Enjolras turns his back on the horror scene, cheeks burning with shame, and lets R lead him deeper into the barely standing building. R leads them down some steps and into a basement, shadows of a life abandoned barely lit by the small hole at the top of the stairs.

"Hopefully they won't look hard." R reaches into his back with his shaking hands and pulls out a little flashlight. "They're not wrong about the whole safety in numbers thing. If you're trying to mow down a couple hundred people, it's much easier to be one of the ones that get missed. And you're bright, Apollo, but I think they'd have a hard time even spotting your glow in all this." The tiny beam does little to cut through the darkness, and Enjolras realizes that the haze he had been waiting to clear from his vision is in fact just the air itself. It's darker. The burning in his lungs hasn't gone away, even as he gets his breath back. He remembers the rumours about the air being poison, and pulls his blanket over his mouth.

R looks back at him and actually laughs. It's a nice laugh, out of place for him, just like his bright eyes. "Quick thinking, Apollo. Come on, there's a bit of space behind the stairs. You can insert a Harry Potter joke once we're safely hidden, I promise."

They barely fit, two boys and their backpacks. R doesn't bother covering his mouth. Another question to ask later. Enjolras untangles the blanket from his neck and instead lays it over the both of them. He gets a glimpse of R's surprised approval before the flashlight goes out.

"Should save the batteries. I tried to fill up once I got to your lovely little home, but the people in charge were pretty stingy with their supplies. Oh well. More for those assholes with guns, now. Should have just given the weird ugly guy some extra batteries."

Enjolras opens his mouth, flinching at what sounds like an explosion reaches them. "I'm Enjolras," he says. There will be time for questions later, when his head stops pounding, when he stops thinking about all of the faces he's gotten to know in the bunker, when the brief glance he got of what the world looks now has time to sink in.

A little huff of breath, and then a rough hand finds his. The handshake feels strangely formal, between saviour and the saved, huddled in their hiding spot. There's that huff of laughter again, and his hand is released.

"Enjolras. Well, welcome to the end of all things."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Combeferre makes his own escape, takes two step forwards and one step back.

Combeferre has no idea that the whole end of the world doesn't go as planned until the bunker is attacked.

The people inside are scared, weakened from four months underground. The attackers are covered from head to toe, and when they finally cut through the door, they look like something out of a horror film.

The soldiers tell them to stand down, but they're already shooting into the crowd. Combeferre stands frozen, something he'll replay over and over later, wondering how many he could have saved if only he had acted sooner.

Next to him, the shelter's lone doctor goes down, and Combeferre  starts moving again. He gets his hand on the man's neck, but even if this wound had happened outside of the nation's best hospital a team of trained trauma experts couldn't have stopped him from bleeding out. Combeferre gets covered in blood for his troubles, and the bullets are still flying.

He thinks about what ifs he discussed with his friends around campfires, some playfully and some more serious.

He crawls to the curtain that separates the medical tent from the rest of the bunker. He moves almost without thinking, grabbing gauze and painkillers and masks, shoves them under one of the mattresses, and then rolls under the gurney himself. Between the blood and the shadows, he hopefully passes for dead.

The screams and groans of the injured continue even after the bullets stop. His ears are ringing, but he can still catch a voice shouting for anyone who can still move to march out of the bunker. The sound of shuffling feet, and then heavier boots, moving faster. The crash of beds being overturned. Whimpering and pleading are met with more shouts. Combeferre watches through barely open eyes as more boots stomp past his hiding spot, and then the sound of them emptying out what's left of their medical supplies. He swears he hardly breathes as they do it, terrified of being found out, but none of them bother looking down.

It's quiet long enough that Combeferre thinks that maybe they've gone, and he's about to go check on the wounded when there's a loud laugh, and one last round of gunfire. More laughter, and then the sound of truck doors slamming and driving away.

Combeferre feels sick. He crawls out from under the bed, retrieves the stuff he stashed, and exits the tent.

None of the wounded are making a sound, now.

Combeferre looks at the mass of bodies, lying where they fell, and then he does get sick.

Five minutes, he tells himself. He has five minutes to fall apart. He lets his body shake itself to pieces, and then he stands. There will be no mistakes. He's going to have to check every single one of these bodies, people he knows by face if not by name. If there's one sluggish pulse among the lot, it's worth it.

His untrained hands are not enough. Every thready pulse slips through his fingers, and within two days he's leaving the whole bunker behind. He's got two backpacks, one holding what little food was left behind and the other any clothes that looked his size or decently sturdy. The best he can do for the dead is close the doors behind him. He knows it's a waste of energy to try to bury them, and a fire might draw attention from whatever group of people hit them in the first place. He does take some spray paint he finds and writes Rest In Peace across the door. It's the least he can do.

It's not enough.

The world outside of the bunker is a strange one, like he's wandered onto the set of one of Courfeyrac's zombie films. It's the silence that gets to him, though. No power. No people. Half the buildings are rubble. The air is thick, too. What he first thinks might be fog he realizes is actually ash. He wraps an extra shirt around his face and continues on.

He points himself towards what was once home, because he's not sure what else he can do.

Combeferre's building was an old one. The pipes creaked and the hot water was inconsistent at best and he had long suspected the basement of being haunted. He had loved the place, in all its disarray.  
When he sees it’s still standing, he doesn't even stop to think about structural integrity, or who might have left the door hanging open. He runs up the last few steps, desperate for something at all familiar.

It's dark inside, but Combeferre could have navigated it blind. He can't hear anything, which strikes him as strange, even more so than it did outside. An apartment building full of students and young families, there was always distant music, children's feet running. Where is the wildlife? He hasn't seen a single living thing since he left the bunker. There should have been… Something. Bird calls. Pets gone feral, even.

The door to the stairs is hanging off its hinges, and Combeferre needs to slow down, needs to think clearly about this. Everything is earthquake damaged at the very least, after all.

He’ll do all these things once he sees his apartment. He just needs to breathe, to stop shaking.

Combeferre is five steps away the third floor, already turning the corner in his mind, pushing his door open, when he puts his foot down and there's nothing there.

He doesn't react fast enough, hands flying out to grab at the wall and railing but only succeeding in wrenching his shoulder hard enough for him to cry out. His leg is buried to mid thigh, the edge of the stair digging into sensitive skin. He panics, clawing at the stair in front of him. There's something wet running down his leg, and he hopes it's not a major vein, because he doesn't want to bleed out, not like this.

Footsteps above him, and then bright blinding light. A flashlight, aimed just to the right of his face but still enough to blind him, and he'd throw an arm up over his eyes but he's worried if he lets go at all he’ll sink even deeper.

“With the worldwide popularity of Harry Potter, I'm shocked at how often the Vanishing Stair trick works,” says the figure. The voice is young and light, so out of place for the whole situation that it takes Combeferre a few seconds to register what they said at all.

Apparently Hogwarts references have survived the end of the world. Combeferre supposed he should find that hopeful.

“Please. Help me.”

The person steps closer.

“Where did you come from, Neville? I don’t remember seeing your face around here.”

The sound of gunfire flashes through his mind, and he flinches. The person’s approach stops.

“I was in a bunker. We were… We were attacked.” Massacred, really. Rounded up and carted away, and he did nothing to stop it. “I hid.” A shameful little sentence, not nearly enough to explain his failings, but it’s all he can muster right now.

“I saw their trucks roll through. You look clean enough to have come out of a bunker.”

His eyes are slowly adjusting, and the flashlight’s beam has slipped a little further down, pointed more at the stairs than at him now. The person in front of him is almost entirely covered, just their eyes peeking out over a handkerchief they have wrapped around the bottom half of their face, and the long dark braid that is tucked over one shoulder. They look very strange, patches of bright colour on the knees, and over one ear. Their silhouette is misshapen with what look like bulging pockets in strange places, and they have one hand up as they approach.

“I’m going to pull you out now. Please don’t try to stab me, okay?”

Combeferre could say with some confidence that the thought had not even crossed his mind. The person leans over and grabs him underneath his armpits, and then starts to pull him up and forward. Combeferre bites the inside of his cheek as he feels the wood shards drag against his skin, but nothing cuts as deep as the initial fall, which is good. As soon as he has leverage, he’s kicking with his free foot too, and after that it’s almost too easy to drag him out of the hole. He mutters a thank you as the stranger releases him with a soft grunt of relief, hands already moving to find the hole in his thigh. Still bleeding, but not as bad as it could have been.

“That doesn't look good.”

Despite their words, the stranger’s hands hover over his leg. In the light of the flashlight, set off to the side, it looks strange and macabre, blood and the long shadow of curious fingers.

“I have medical supplies in my backpack,” Combeferre explains. “If you don't mind shining that light on me here, I can patch myself up.”

“Not something you should advertise,” they say, sounding awfully mild for something worded close to threatening.

Combeferre’s already digging out one of the bottles of water so he can rinse off the area enough to see what he's working with.

“Which part?” he asks. Now that he can see properly, the cuts look even less bad than they feel. As long as they don’t get infected, he should be just fine. “The medical supplies or the training?”

“The supplies are hard to come by, certainly. But it’s the doctors that go missing faster.”

“Not a doctor.” He says it on instinct, only half paying attention. The gaze goes on easy, makes everything look manageable. Some tape to hold it in place, and he’s practically whole again. “Just a year of medical school.”

“Still better than anything I’ve seen since the apocalypse begun, Doc.”

“Combeferre,” he corrects, and attempts to stand. Everything holds, and he lets his breathing return to normal. How ridiculous would it have been, to cripple himself the first day out of the bunker, in the dark stairwell of his own apartment building. Courfeyrac would never have let him hear the end of it.

If he ever sees Courf again.

That thought is banished to the back of his mind, because the very thought of it threatens to send him to the ground again. The whole time he was inside the bunker, it was easy to pretend that his friends were having very much the same experience, hidden away in their own safe places, waiting for the ban on leaving to be lifted so they could find each other again, with nothing very different except some new stories to tell. Now, Combeferre can feel every single mile between him and his closest friends, and ‘what if’s are starting to surface, terrifying in their possibilities now.

He has to distract himself, before he starts to think about worst case scenarios ( _Enjolras, not hiding under some bed but standing defiant in front of those guns, Courfeyrac trying to help people and being seen, both of them braver than him, both of them bleeding out on some cold cement floor_ ). He shoulders both packs again, as his rescuer picks up the flashlight.

“Thanks again,” he says, suddenly feeling awkward. What do you say to the only human you’ve seen outside? Do they just go their separate ways? What is the proper end of the world etiquette, here?

“I’m Jehan,” says the stranger. They offer their hand, but when Combeferre takes it, expecting a shake, he finds himself being dragged up the last few steps and into his hallway. The lighting is strange and patchy, leaking in from doors hanging off hinges or missing completely. Combeferre misses the appraising look from his new friend as he heads straight for his own door, chest already constricting at the thought of what might still be there and what won’t be.

His door is one of the ones that is still on its hinges. He has a strange moment where he reaches for the doorknob and half expects it to be locked. But it swings open easily, already ajar, and he steps into his home for the first time in months.

The windows are shattered, his desk is waterlogged. He leaves Jehan in the doorway as he stumbles through the rooms in a daze. It’s not a big space, but at one point it was very distinctly his. Now it feels like the remnants of a dream, a place he used to know but doesn’t quite remember right anymore. He trails his fingers over ripped wallpaper and a torn map of the world. The narrow galley kitchen is almost impassable, cupboards bare, shattered mugs and glasses all over the floor. Doesn’t matter. His favourite mug he kept in his room anyway.

His room. The bed, stripped bare. The drawers thrown around the room. Someone might have slept here, for a time. He wonders where they are, if they’re still alive. If his comforter made any difference.

The drawer under his bed has been rummaged through, but nothing looks like it’s missing. Why would someone take this stuff, after all. None of it is useful. Frayed friendship bracelets, old yearbooks, an old science fair project. The mug, too cracked to be used but kept safe in here, an ugly lump of a thing that Courfeyrac made for him, one of their first summers at camp. The friendship bracelets were more Enjolras’s thing, although they all made them. A way to keep his hands busy, another way to hold on to bright colours even as they got to the ages where boys with bracelets got strange looks.

He sticks the bracelets inside the mug, wraps the whole thing in a misshapen scarf that Joly had knit for him one year, and places it carefully inside one of his packs. Then he takes a few minutes to replace some of the clothing he’d taken from the bunker with his own clothes. His favourite winter jacket is still in the back of his closet, so he takes that too. The first aid kit he kept in the bathroom is gone, but there’s a few bits and bobs in his room he adds to his collection, tensor bandages and one of those heating pads you boil to reset. It still feels surreal, and it isn’t until he’s closing the door that he realizes he started packing without thinking about how he could stay here, if he wanted to. It already feels like a place from his past, not for his present. He takes a deep breath that is shakier than he wants to admit, and heads back to the living room.

It’s there that he finds Jehan, standing in the middle of the room, eyeing one of his large bookcases. There’s a little red wagon that is definitely not his, tucked away in the corner.

“This was yours, then?” Jehan asks, and Combeferre takes a moment to really get a good look at them. The bright patch by their ear is a chrysanthemum, looking fresh and cheery and alien in this weird muted version of his life. Like finding true colour in the corner of a sepia photograph. Their clothing is even stranger in the light, layered and bursting with patterns and pockets. They’re not large, but they fill the room with their presence, not letting Combeferre get lost in the memories here.

“Yes.”

Jehan nods, running their fingers down the spine of a large book on birds of North America. “I was going to ask for your help in bringing these all downstairs, but I can understand if you’d rather keep them.”

“What are you planning on doing with them?” Fire flashes in his mind, because he has always equivocated disasters with burning books.

Jehan turns and even with their face still half covered, Combeferre can tell they’re smiling.

“I wanted to add them to my library.”

A bit of tension leaks from Combeferre’s shoulders. “Is that where you’re staying? A library?”

Jehan shakes their head, turning back to pull out a well-read copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. “No. I’m staying in a church. I’m building a library. Do you want to see?”

Anything is better than staying here, Combeferre thinks. If he stays here, he’ll become the ghost in the basement, stuck imitating a life that doesn’t exist anymore.

“Yes. I would love that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here](hulklinging.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you wanna chat more about dead revolutionaries!


End file.
